Walkin in the rain

It’s definitely cooler in Barcelona, and certainly more humid – to the point that it downpoured for a lot of today. Our first crappy weather day, huzzah? We got fairly close to the Cathedral of Barcelona before it started though, and that was a pretty good first start. There was a great big courtyard with trees and ponds and (stinky) white geese that was impressive, and the actual inside of the church was massive and much more complicated than that of Madrid. They even had a creepy cool old crypt at the bottom. Tourist checkpoint one!

We had looked up a lot of things chocolate-related last night so we decided to hit the chocolate museum next, as it was fairly close. We dashed through the rain to get there and were pretty wet. But our admission was not expensive and our ticket was a chocolate bar! Inside there was a really basic history of chocolate but more importantly there were several chocolate carving / modeling masterpieces and…TAZA! Although they didn’t call it taza, that’s what it was, and I’d say it was on par or better than Azafran’s. Nomnomnom. We hit up the next two floors - one was a convent under construction/restoration, and another was a photo exhibit of pictures taken around 1910. Not as good as chocolate, but interesting.

We attempted to do a bit more but the rain finally overtook us. We were forced into a Chinese convenience store while it did its worst, and bought some of the ham-flavored chips that seem to be so prevalent here. They were actually not bad! Eventually we made it back to the hostel to dry off and figure out when exactly we should leave to go see the Tour de France. Because we had a computer that had the official website up, people kept asking about it. Through this we met a few people, even some – Americans! – that didn’t know Delaware was a state. Amusing. The time came to go stand out (thankfully the rain had stopped) by a street really close to the hostel, watch all the police warning cars go past, and finally see a lot of lean biking people whiz past. It was pretty exciting at the time, watching the cars with the bike racks and such. In retrospect it wasn’t such a big deal but how often will we be able to see the Tour de France?!

Afterwards I was starving so we set out in search of dinner again. Against our better judgment we sat according to my stomach again – oops. So the food wasn’t so great again, but the wine was good, and the waiter gave us free cava at the end. I had planned to get some at some point, to try it against champagne and prosecco (it’s more like prosecco and less like champagne, thank goodness) so that was convenient. The true genius of it all was that we exited at the exact right moment to be asked by an Asian couple where the fountain show was. That had been on our eventual itinerary anyhow, so we just walked them up to the right place since it was a bit far away (though we had checked it out the night before). Along the way we had a great chat about our trips and them working as teachers in Ohio and us going to graduate school, among other things. They were pretty awesome and it turned into a nice evening. The fountain show was fantastic as well! Colors and classical music and a lot of fluid dynamics going on. Probably the most magical part of our Barcelona visit so far!

We wandered around later looking for churros and chocolate but found that a ton of places in Barcelona are closed after 11pm. We thought this city was supposed to be like NYC! Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong part, I’m not sure. Anyhow we gave up and went into a kebap place in frustration, which was actually fairly good. We think we witnessed a pickpocket trade a lifted camera for a Coke, though. Hmmm, interesting. But a story!

Now we will probably chill in the common room where people are playing guitar and singing really well! It’s been pretty inconvenient to be in a multi-person room but the common room and the included breakfast, plus other times to have a sort of ‘crowd’ to see things with (ie Tour de France) almost make it okay. Almost. Anyway the weather tomorrow should be much better so we have good hopes. Adios!

PS - Uploaded new pictures!